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March 27 - April 2, 2009 The Independent Weekly 34 www.independentweekly.com.au Daniel Scott I don’t usually get excited by travelling solo – apart from a tendency to keep replaying the same conversation, there are all those awkward silences over dinner – but this trip to the Eyre Peninsula is going to be different. This weekend I am taking my taste buds on a gastronomic journey. Over the years, we’ve been on a few such perambula- tions, from an olive trail in the Hunter Valley to the unpromising-sounding sauerkraut route in the Alsace region of France. But as an aquatarian (seafood-eating vegetarian), none of these had quite the perfect fit of the Seafood and Aquaculture Trail. Extending around the Eyre Peninsula coastline, from Whyalla in the east to Ceduna in the west, it showcases a local industry that produces some of the world’s best oysters, mussels, tuna and crayfish and accounts for 65 per cent of South Australia’s seafood output. The trail gives visitors the chance to meet suppliers, learn about the production process and buy seafood. Featured restaurants along the way add atmospheric and innovative ways of eating it. I begin my tour at the end of the trail at Ceduna and plan to wind slowly back east towards Port Lincoln, past a succession of bays with evocative names such as Smoky, Streaky and, erm, Coffin. My first stop is the pretty coastal village of Elliston, three hours’ drive away, for Pedro’s Crayfish Tour. It doesn’t take long to find the fisherman’s unassuming home-cum-processing plant. The fisherman’s real name is Peter Martin but the moment he greets us it is obvious why he is known as Pedro.With his black skip- per’s cap, greying moustache and dark gimlet eyes, he looks like a salty Iberian sea dog who you half expect to mutter “Hola, amigos” through a fog of unfiltered cigarette smoke. Martin, who has been The Eyre Peninsula is famous for its seafood, especially southern rock lobster. Photo: Fairfax crayfishing off Elliston for 30 years, is an engaging host, passionate about his product. All the more impressive when you learn he cannot actually eat his catch because he is allergic to crayfish. During the half-hour tour, Martin details the ideal conditions for the crusta- ceans that are found off the nearby limestone cliffs. It is this environment that helps make the Eyre Peninsula’s crayfish, also known as southern rock lobsters, some of the finest in the world. Particularly in demand in Asia, they currently fetch more than $65 a kilogram. A licence to fish for them in this area is worth about $1 million. When Martin extracts a plump specimen from a holding tank and offers to cook it up for the six people on the tour, I havea vegetar- ian pang before agreeing to the feast. An hour later, I have no regrets as we tuck into the tender beast, grilled to perfection with garlic and butter. Come the evening I am eating seafood again, this time outside the Oysterbeds restaurant on the shores of Coffin Bay,named by Matthew Flinders after Sir Isaac Coffin. I enjoy a delicious Asian- accented dinner, digging into some kingfish sashimi and a half-dozen Coffin Bay oysters dressed with soy, mirin and wasabi. The next morning I join local guide Darian Gale aboard the Coffin Bay Explorer oyster lease tour. Beginning with a put-put around the harbour, the tour travel Seafood safari progresses through the lake- like bay to a working oyster farmin sheltered waters behind Point Longnose. The tour is far from just an A to Z of Coffin Bay oysters. First we pause at Goat Island, where Flinders dropped off a pair of breeding goats as a potential food source for future settlers and what is now home for cormorants and pelicans. Then we bob about off Brothers Island, where some smart Australian sea lions and New Zealand fur seals have found a rocky sanctuary from marauding great white sharks. Pulling up to an expanse of oyster beds spread out in shallow emerald waters, Gale explains that in the late-19th century as many as 30 vessels were dredging for millionaire fishermen, many of whom share Croatian lineage. Although tuna boats have been running out of Port Lincoln since the 1930s, it wasn’t until the 1990s that a revolutionary idea changed the face of the industry. That idea was to tow large farm-nets full of tuna from the deep Southern Ocean to nearby Boston Bay for fattening. It is a fascinating story and inspires me to take in the Close Up Tuna Tour off Port Lincoln as the final part of my journey along the aquaculture trail. This tour visits a specially adapted tuna pen just out to sea, allowing visitors to view 65 hefty bluefin tuna from a floating pontoon and an underwater viewing tunnel. While the area’s oysters and crayfish are justifiably famous, the Eyre Peninsula and particularly its principal town, Port Lincoln, is best known for tuna them to supply the Adelaide market. It was not until 1969, however, when Japanese Pacific oysters were intro- duced, that the area really hit pay dirt. The clean, tranquil waters can help oysters growas big as dinner plates. There are now 1.5 billion oysters in Coffin Bay and they are in much demand in chic Australian restaurants and further afield in Japan and Hong Kong. The oyster industry is worth more than $30 million a year to the Eyre Peninsula. As we leave the lease, Gale pulls up a precious bag of fresh oysters and we head to a sublime white-sand cove to sample them. Served straight from the sea with just a squeeze of lemon, they slip down with a juicy, salty zing. While the area’s oysters and crayfish are justifiably famous, the Eyre Peninsula and particularly its principal town, Port Lincoln, is best known for tuna. The industry, which supplies the Japanese sashimi market, has created numerous You can handfeed them and, if you’re game, get into the pen and swim with them. Having eyeballed several potential dinners, I am drawn to one last seafood banquet, this time outside popular Port Lincoln restaurant Del Giorno’s for a pot of chilli-infused Port Lincoln black mussels and a pan-seared local tuna steak. My journey along the Eyre Peninsula’s seafood trail has proved beyond doubt that food always tastes better when you know where it comes from. FAST FACTS ??Getting there: Regional Express flies from Adelaide to Port Lincoln (from $107 one way ) and Ceduna (from $160 one way). See www.rex. com.au. ??SeaSA operates a ferry service from Wallaroo (Yorke Peninsula) to Lucky Bay (Eyre Peninsula). Adults, $32.50 one way; children, $10; $130 for a vehicle. See www.seasa.com.au.